The present invention relates to a method for emulating an environmental sensor in a motor vehicle in a specified collision situation at a first predetermined speed of the motor vehicle, a method for testing an anticipatory safety system of a motor vehicle in a collision situation, wherein the safety system includes data received from an environmental sensor, in particular via a vehicle bus, and an emulation system for an environmental sensor of the motor vehicle.
The following discussion of related art is provided to assist the reader in understanding the advantages of the invention, and is not to be construed as an admission that this related art is prior art to this invention.
Anticipatory safety systems for motor vehicles are generally known. The environment of the motor vehicle is hereby monitored for potential collision situations by environmental sensors (anticipatory sensors), for example laser scanners, radar sensors, PMD (Photonic Mixer Device), image-producing sensors and the like, for activating with a control device measures that prevent an accident or lessen the severity of an accident. For example, brake interventions can be performed or airbag algorithms can be pre-parameterized, and the like.
To be able to test the anticipatory safety systems, it is known to install the systems in a motor vehicle in addition to the employed environmental sensors used to perform a so-called “crash test”, i.e. by intentionally causing a certain defined collision situation. In most cases, this also results in an actual collision, because the actual anticipatory sensor data can only be recorded by the environmental sensors during actual collisions.
Disadvantageously, the installation and integration of the environmental sensors (anticipatory sensors) is expensive, and most motor vehicles tested, for example in crash buildings, lack such environmental sensors. In addition, the anticipatory sensors are mostly destroyed in crash tests, although these sensors may be very expensive prototypes.
It would therefore be desirable and advantageous to obviate prior art shortcomings and to provide an improved method and system for obtaining realistic sensor data from an environmental sensor during a crash test, without requiring installation of the sensor or risking destruction of the sensor.